Quick summary
Two of Guatemala's four tracked Airbnb markets have a long-term rent median to compare against. In Antigua, a 2-guest entire place asked a median $92 a night (captured 4 Sep 2026) against a $1,325 median monthly rent (Encuentra24, scraped_on 3 Sep 2026) — about 14.4 booked nights a month to break even. In Guatemala City, $64 a night against Zone 10's $1,925 median rent needs about 30.1 nights, which is more nights than a month contains. Lake Atitlán and the Pacific coast get no break-even here at all, because the rental feed carries no zone for either. Occupancy is unknown and every fee is excluded — this is a threshold, not a yield.
The nightly side: what all four markets ask
Data collected 2026-09-04 for a 2026-10-06 to 2026-10-08 stay. Airbnb prices change daily and by date: check live before booking.
| Market | Entire, 2 guests | Private room, 2 | Entire, 3–4 | Entire, 5–8 | Listings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antigua Guatemala | $92 | $35 | $145 | $306 | 400 |
| Lake Atitlán | $87 | $43 | $175 | $325 | 300 |
| Guatemala City & metro | $64 | — | $95 | $153 | 250 |
| Pacific coast | $102* | — | $130* | $288 | 200 |
Captured 2026-09-04 · 2026-10-06→2026-10-08 · USD (capture date · stay queried · currency), 2 adults, 2-night weekday stay. Captured once a month: a capped sample of Airbnb search results for one fixed 2-night weekday stay about a month ahead, priced for a 2-adult booking. Not every listing, only those still open for those dates; the nightly rate Airbnb showed for that stay (a displayed promotion is usually already inside it), not booked rates. Large homes are over-represented in the sample, so compare the guest-count segments, not the overall median. * = small sample (10–19 listings); — = fewer than 10, no median. Source: Airbnb search results via Apify.
How this comparison is built, exactly
Two datasets meet on this page and they do not share a source, a cadence or a date, so the method is stated in full rather than buried:
- Nightly side. The
two_guests_entiresegment median for each market, from the monthly Airbnb capture,captured_on4 Sep 2026, for a 6–8 Oct 2026 weekday stay priced for 2 adults. An entire place sleeping two is the closest short-stay equivalent to a rented one- or two-bedroom apartment, which is why that segment is used instead of the overall market median. - Monthly side. The USD median (
usd.median) from the weekly Encuentra24 long-term rental scrape, fieldscraped_on= 3 Sep 2026, for the zone that matches each Airbnb market. USD is used because the short-stay rates are in USD; the same feed also publishes a quetzal median per zone, and the two currencies describe genuinely different sub-markets. - The arithmetic. Nightly median × 30 gives a 100%-occupancy month. Rent ÷ nightly median gives break-even nights. Both are computed from the unrounded medians in the feeds, so a hand-check against the rounded dollars in the table will land a dollar or two away.
Market by market
| Market | 2-guest entire, per night (4 Sep 2026) | × 30 nights | Long-term median rent, USD (3 Sep 2026) | Rent-zone key used | Break-even nights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antigua Guatemala | $92 | $2,757 | $1,325 (12 USD listings) | sacatepequez-antigua-guatemala | ~14.4 |
| Guatemala City & metro | $64 | $1,920 | $1,925 (96 USD listings) | guatemala-guatemala-city-zona-10 | ~30.1 |
| Lake Atitlán | $87 | $2,609 | no zone in the rental feed | — | not published |
| Pacific coast | $102* | $3,075 | no zone in the rental feed | — | not published |
* Pacific coast’s 2-guest entire-place segment holds 12 priced listings and is flagged a small sample in the source; the other three markets hold 49, 51 and 58. The Antigua rent zone carries 19 priced listings in total and is flagged thin by the rental feed’s own 20-listing rule, although its USD sub-sample is not flagged; read that $1,325 as the thinnest number in the table. Break-even nights and the ×30 column are computed from the unrounded medians.
The two published rows point in opposite directions, and that is the finding. Antigua’s short-stay asking rate clears a month of Antigua rent in roughly half a month of bookings; the capital’s does not clear Zone 10 rent even at 30 nights. The mechanism is visible in the two feeds themselves: in the 4 Sep 2026 capture Antigua’s nightly median sits above the capital’s at every guest count where both publish one ($92 vs $64, $145 vs $95, $306 vs $153, $423 vs $225), while on the rent side Zone 10’s $1,925 USD median is the highest among the city-metro zones whose USD sample the feed does not flag as thin.
Break-even by Guatemala City zone
Pairing the whole capital against Zone 10 flatters Zone 10 and nothing else, so here is the same division run across every tracked city-metro zone whose USD sample the rental feed does not flag as thin, all against the same $64 city-wide nightly median:
| Zone (rent feed) | Median rent, USD (3 Sep 2026) | USD listings | Break-even nights at $64 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone 4 | $850 | 35 | ~13.3 |
| Zone 11 | $868 | 20 | ~13.6 |
| Mixco | $1,100 | 12 | ~17.2 |
| Zone 13 | $1,175 | 52 | ~18.4 |
| Zone 15 | $1,350 | 83 | ~21.1 |
| Santa Catarina Pinula | $1,500 | 17 | ~23.4 |
| Zone 14 | $1,600 | 91 | ~25.0 |
| Zone 16 (Cayalá) | $1,850 | 118 | ~28.9 |
| Zone 10 | $1,925 | 96 | ~30.1 |
Zones 1, 7 and 9, Villa Nueva and Quetzaltenango are omitted because the rental feed flags their USD samples as thin — 3, 1, 6, 0 and 1 USD-priced listings respectively. Nightly median: Airbnb capture, 4 Sep 2026. Rent medians: Encuentra24, scraped_on 3 Sep 2026, rebuilt weekly, so the live figure is always the one on the linked zone page.
Read down that column and the capital splits in two. In the quetzal-leaning zones the break-even sits near a fortnight; in the dollar-priced zones it runs to three or four weeks. One nightly rate is being tested against nine very different monthly rates.
Four reasons this number is a threshold, not a yield
- Occupancy is unmeasured. No verified short-term-rental occupancy source exists for Guatemala. Break-even nights tell you the target; nothing here tells you whether a property hits it. Fourteen nights is 47% of a 30-day month, and that is an assumption you have to test, not a figure this page supplies.
- Every fee is excluded on both sides. The Airbnb capture returns no cleaning or service fee, and the builder therefore publishes no all-in figure. Nothing here nets out platform commission, management, furnishing, utilities, maintenance, or SAT tax.
- The two sides are not the same product. A short stay is furnished, serviced and priced weekly; the long-term medians come from a market that is largely unfurnished and rented for a year. The rental feed does not carry a furnished flag, so this page makes no furnished-premium adjustment.
- Both sides are samples. The Airbnb figures come from one capture of one 2-night stay, and only from listings still open for those dates. The rent figures come from active Encuentra24 listings, quarantined against sale prices posted as rent, and are asking rents rather than signed leases.
Filter the nightly side yourself
Data collected 2026-09-04 for a 2026-10-06 to 2026-10-08 stay (2 adults). Airbnb prices change daily and by date: check live before booking.
Loading the sample…
Nightly rate as Airbnb showed it for a 2-adult booking on those dates (a displayed promotion is usually already inside it), before extra-guest fees, cleaning, service fees and taxes. A capped monthly sample of Airbnb search results (large homes are over-represented); amenities are what the listing lists. Under 10 matches: no median; 10–19: small sample. No individual listing is ever shown.
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